NEWS & PRESS

Ken Freeman, Duffield Professor of the Australian National University at Mt. Stromlo Observatory and Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society has won the Australian Prime Minister's Prize for Science. Prof. Freeman published a ground-breaking paper in 1970 suggesting that the visible stars, gas and dust in galaxies is only a small fraction of their mass and that the rest is 'dark matter'.

Prof. Ken Freeman. Credit: Prime Minister's Science Prizes / BearcageMore recently, in 2002 Prof. Freeman is credited as a founder of the field of galactic archaeology, determining the age and movement of stars in our own galaxy by analysing their chemical composition. That same year he was made an Associate of the RAS.

Prof. Freeman is awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Science in recognition of these and his many other achievements over a career spanning 50 years.